Shinzon's motives

The problem is that while those would be interesting motivations, at no point in the actual movie is it stated or even vaguely implied that those are Shinzon's motives, so its pure speculation. What we got in the movie is that he wants to destroy Earth for some reason, and hates Picard, for some reason, both of which are never clarified.

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Some of us got it by ourselves. The clues are right there. Why do some audience members need everything spoonfed to them?

What's wrong with a little speculation after seeing a Trek movie?

"So why do you think Spock needed to rid himself of human emotions"?

"Why was Saavik crying at Spock's funeral?"

"Where was Amanda during Spock's fal tor pan?"

"What was the Probe asking the whales"?

"What does God need with a starship?" (Well, okay, that one was asked in the film. How about, do you think he was a rogue Cytherian?")

"Why does Kirk suddenly hate Klingons when he happily hosted some in ST V"?

And so on...

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See the problem with that is, Shinzon was supposed to be Picard's Khan and Khan had for more straight forward reasons for hating Kirk compared to the reasons for Shinzon hating Picard and wanting to destroy Earth.

Khan is a better villain because we have a better understanding of what drives him and why he hates Kirk. Sure Khan's megalomania gives him a warped perspective and lets him ignored his own fault for his situation, but he does have a right to be upset, Kirk didn't check up on him after banishing him to that planet and Khan's wife dying would certainly make bitter towards Kirk. All of that is far more interesting then the convoluted, yet underdeveloped motives Shinzon had in Nemesis. Convoluted story telling is not good story telling.

See the problem with that is, Shinzon was supposed to be Picard's Khan.

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Where in the movie does it explain that?

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Well if we want to read between the lines and not have everything spoon fed to us, most of the movie apes Wrath of Khan, the movie makers said this was supposed to be the TNG Wrath of Khan, so it makes sense that Shinzon is supposed to be Khan in this story.

"Nemesis" is certainly not my favourite Trek movie, but I have more issues with the directing than I do with the script.

Data was my favourite character; I should have been an emotional wreck at his passing.

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Well we have to agree to disagree, because I did think this movie had a lot of script problems.

Another problem is, Shinzon is supposed be an evil version of Picard, but he doesn't feel like that. An evil version of Picard wouldn't destroy Earth, he would gain nothing from that, but an evil version of Picard could destroy Romulus, because the Romulans have been a threat in the past and an evil Picard could use that as an excuse to justify genocide. There would be a method to the madness of an evil Picard, there would be a sinister logic behind his actions, Shinzon's actions don't seem to reflect the type of man an evil Picard would be.

So having Shinzon threaten Romulus instead of Earth makes for a better thematic story, Shinzon is doing something an evil Picard would do and makes Picard have to save one of the Federation's most dangerous enemies in the process. That is more interesting than what we got in Nemesis.

^^ I agree, far more interesting.
Although the story might be a hard sell to some.

V/O ANNOUNCER: Watch as Picard actually defends The Federation's most secretive enemy... the ROMULANS.
JOE SIX PACK: Romul-whose? I wanna see Picard save the Earth again. Because that's where I live dangnabbit, on EARTH. Yee-haw!

^^ I agree, far more interesting.
Although the story might be a hard sell to some.

V/O ANNOUNCER: Watch as Picard actually defends The Federation's most secretive enemy... the ROMULANS.
JOE SIX PACK: Romul-whose? I wanna see Picard save the Earth again. Because that's where I live dangnabbit, on EARTH. Yee-haw!

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I don't know, in Thor the climax of the movie was Thor stopping Loki from destroying the ice giant race, I'm not sure how many people disliked that movie because Loki was threatening the ice giants rather then Asgard or Earth.

A good writer could make people care about Romulus and root for Picard to stop Shinzon.

Well there could easily be a loop around the facet of Earth hanging in the balance; if Earth's prosperity and safety was tethered to a politically stable Romulus? Maybe they should have aimed closer to The Undiscovered Country than Khan.

Shinzon's motives never made ANY sense. Why does he want to destroy Earth exactly? EVERYTHING that's revealed about him makes it much more likely that he'd want to destroy Romulus. The Romulans created him, the Romulans abandoned him and sent him to die a slow and painful death in the mines, the Romulans abuse, oppress, and mistreat his Reman "brothers." If the plot made ANY sense, then he should be attacking Romulus, not Earth. The only thing that Picard ever did to Shinzon was to exist, and without Picard, Shinzon wouldn't exist. Picard wasn't even aware of Shinzon's existence or who he was until Shinzon TOLD HIM. It's like the screenwriters didn't bother to apply ANY kind of logic to their characters or plot, how did the studio allow this script to be filmed, I'll never understand that. Still, Nemesis was NOWHERE near as infuriating as Insurrection, I HATE that movie.

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Actually, his motives, as retarded as they are, aren't any more retarded than Nero's, yet Trek '09 is considered by some to be cinematic gold! In fact, Nero hanging out for like 25 years in space to blow up Vulcan and and try to do that to Earth, are even worse!

Nero and Shinzon are both absolutely terrible villains. The only reason ST09 is somewhat better (though not getting anywhere near cinematic gold, imo), is because 09 has a better sense of humor ( for me, the only real significant improvement Abrams has brought to Trek, so far) and because Nero's sucky characterization feels slightly less disappointing since the film literally spells it out for everyone that he's really just a plot device designed to make the time travel reboot possible, rather than a villain who's actually supposed to be interesting in and of himself.

^^ I agree, far more interesting.
Although the story might be a hard sell to some.

V/O ANNOUNCER: Watch as Picard actually defends The Federation's most secretive enemy... the ROMULANS.
JOE SIX PACK: Romul-whose? I wanna see Picard save the Earth again. Because that's where I live dangnabbit, on EARTH. Yee-haw!

Nero and Shinzon are both absolutely terrible villains. The only reason ST09 is somewhat better (though not getting anywhere near cinematic gold, imo), is because 09 has a better sense of humor ( for me, the only real significant improvement Abrams has brought to Trek, so far) and because Nero's sucky characterization feels slightly less disappointing since the film literally spells it out for everyone that he's really just a plot device designed to make the time travel reboot possible, rather than a villain who's actually supposed to be interesting in and of himself.

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yep, exactly right. Nero was a lousy villain, but wasn't nearly as significant to the movie as Shinzon was to NEM.

Shinzon was mentally ill, after a life of terrible abuse. His want to destroy Earth and Picard, to drag Picard down and prove himself equal to them fits with paranoid behaviours.

I wonder if those who refuse to accept Shinzon's motives have any experience with the mentally ill?

See also: Hitler. The legend goes that a Jew beat him out of a place in art school, thus: attempted genocide. Yet nobody calls him unrealistic.

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I'll call him a whiny-ass moron. Just because a character potentially has a moderately believable real world explanation, doesn't make them a good character. Especially since the movie couldn't be bothered to engage Shinzon as truly insane, so much as just generically destructive. If it had been less of a straight-up adventure with Shinzon as the Bad Man and more of a serious drama about what to do with this clearly damaged, but unfortunately powerful person, then maybe it would have been a slightly better movie.

Also, Hitler's story has a few more stops along the way than just 'failed artist -> attempted genocide'...

Avatar, also, proves that you don't need Earth to hang in the balance, or much of Earth at all, to make a successful science fiction film. (Note: I don't like Avatar, but it was a mega huge hit, and people were damn near killing themselves over the emotional connection they had with a completely alien species and planet that had no connection to Earth at all.)

I would honestly totally rewrite Shinzon as a character. I'd cut out the whole Troi subplot, i'd cut out the dying subplot. Instead his focus would be entirely a Hitler-inspired ideology of genocide against the Romulans. The Enterprise would, much like her predecessor in Yesterday's Enterprise, make a last ditch stand. This time, defending the Romulan's from Shinzon's radiation weapon.

Avatar, also, proves that you don't need Earth to hang in the balance, or much of Earth at all, to make a successful science fiction film.

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That a scifi story needs Earth to be successful is bullshit talk anyway. The success of a film depends on the execution and not on a list of checkpoints of stuff to put into. Oh, we need a scene on Earth at 8 minutes, a hot babe at 12 minutes, an explosion at 15 minutes, and the car chase at 24 minutes needs to be with BMW cars because market research shows that people associate BMW cars with aggression and action. All that is bullshit.

Sad thing is that some producers and writers actually think like that.

Proof positive that you can make a genre film that has nothing to do with Earth and take the box office by storm? Star Wars.

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And yet I recall discussion at the time that Alderaan was deliberately made a blue planet to remind us that it could have just as easily been Earth.

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We still associate ourselves with the 'humans' in Star Wars.

We only really cared about the Ewok planet because our heroes were there.

I care about Romulus and Vulcan being destroyed because I'm involved in the mythos but my non-Star Trek husband couldn't care less about them.
I also didn't care about the people on Veridian 3.

When we hear about an overseas disaster it sometimes only makes the news here if our fellow countrymen were involved.
I hate to be mean but the massacre in Kenya recently only became of 'real interest' on the news because citizens from our country were killed.

It's less about being human, and more about familiarity and proximity.

The people on Veridian 3 were never shown as a living breathing people, we never got to know them in any way, and thusly their death is distant, cold, and not much of a stakes raiser emotionally.

Whereas in the aforementioned Avatar, or even Star Wars (Since, contrary to their appearances none of them are "human" )we get to know and understand the characters, their motivations, their strengths and weaknesses, and their relationships with each other. Good story comes from good character.

Nero may not have been a particularly memorable villain, but he was still better than Shinzon. At least Nero's insanity was more apparent and his mad quest for revenge, as problematic as it was, made SOME sense, unlike Shinzon. Spock did promise to save Romulus, and failed, resulting in the death of Nero's pregnant wife and the extinction of most of his race. That may not be much, but it is still more motive than Shinzon, who has NO reason to hate Picard or Earth and EVERY reason to hate the Romulans. Also, trying to justify Shinzon being poorly written by bringing up Nero doesn't change the fact that Shinzon was poorly written, it just means that Nero was as well, but Shinzon was written worse.